The present invention relates generally to docking stations for electronic inspection, diagnostics and repair of cable boxes used in conjunction with cable television utilities. More specifically, the present invention includes a rack having a plurality of docking stations that are adapted to receive a plurality of cable boxes, together with a system for checking for malfunctions in each cable box and alerting an operator to potential problems and issues. It should be understood that the term “cable box” may be used herein to refer to any electronic box that is connected to a television, whether the source of the digital signal comes from a cable, satellite, or other type of television signal from a provider.
In recent years, many cable and satellite television companies have begun issuing cable boxes to customers, in order to provide these customers with all of the television channels that are available through the provider. Additionally, these cable boxes are now equipped with additional features, including digital recording capabilities, and are used to facilitate purchases of pay-per-view events, such as sporting events, concerts and movies. These cable boxes, similarly to any other type of high technology systems, are constantly undergoing improvements to features and functionality. As a result of this ever-changing technology, it is common for customers to periodically trade in their older model cable boxes for newer versions. Additionally, when a customer decides to terminate his contract, or declines to renew the cable or satellite television service, he or she typically must bring the cable box back to the company, as these cable boxes are typically owned by the company and leased to the customer.
Due to this constant turnover, it is necessary for these television providers to receive used cable boxes from their customers, and many times, the cable boxes are either refurbished and provided to new customers, or they are upgraded. In either circumstance, the company must test the cable box when it is received back from a customer, in order to ensure that the cable box is in proper working order prior to redistributing it to another customer or providing an upgrade to the existing box. The process of inspecting these cable boxes can be time consuming, and many companies have attempted to design streamlined processes to perform this work. Typically, when a cable box is returned to the company by a customer, a technician must connect the box to a computer or network, using all of the communications ports installed on the cable box, to run diagnostic tests. Such tests are generally performed by running inspection and diagnostic software, to ensure that the cable box is running properly, and further to ensure that all of the ports are communicating properly.
Generally, each cable box includes a series of communications ports, including HDMI ports, standard audio/video jacks, USB ports, fiber optic ports, and coaxial cable ports, among others. Manually connecting cords to each of these ports in order to run inspection and diagnostic software is a slow, time-consuming process. Thus, it would be desirable to provide a diagnostic and inspection system comprising a series of cable box docking stations on a single rack, so that multiple cable boxes may be quickly and easily connected to a computer network for simultaneous testing and diagnostics. Additionally, it would be desirable to provide such a system, wherein each docking station includes an injection-molded back plate having connections corresponding to each digital communications port that is present on the back of a cable box, and a slide plate that receives the cable box in a precise position so that moving the sliding plate and attached cable box towards the back plate aligns the cable box digital communications ports with the corresponding connections on the back plate for a quick and secure connection thereto.